


The Threshold to Annwn

by RhysLahey



Series: Scisaac short fics [11]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Annwn, Dreams and Nightmares, Hurt Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), I'll probably regret writing this in the morning, Lovecraftian, M/M, Otherworld, Psychological Horror, Scott-Centric, cosmic horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:09:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29116539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhysLahey/pseuds/RhysLahey
Summary: Scott and Isaac are looking for an unknown creature in the preserve, when Scott trips over into a different world.
Relationships: Isaac Lahey/Scott McCall
Series: Scisaac short fics [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1960519
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	The Threshold to Annwn

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be weird. Brace yourselves.
> 
> I've been too impatient this time, and it hasn't been beta-read, but I think it is only fitting.
> 
> Oh, and in Welsh the w is a [u] sound, so annwn is read "A-noon".

Scott was walking in the preserve, eyes peeled, ears listening carefully. Whatever had triggered all the alarms in the school had headed this way, and while the pack did not know what they were going to do about it, they needed to know _what_ they were facing. However, the only thing he could sense was Isaac – he could smell his characteristic scent, and hear his heartbeat, and even feel the warmth that radiated off his skin. As usual, Isaac was just a few metres behind him, and Scott was happy that he was. Meanwhile, Lydia, Stiles and Allison had driven to the far side of the preserve, in case there were any traces indicating that the creature (or creatures) responsible for their current chaos had left the area.

“What are we actually looking for?” Isaac said in the same tone he would use to tease Stiles, although Scott knew that the beta was not being malicious.

“Did you smell that in the school?”

“Oh, burnt metal?”

“That’s what we’re looking for,” Scott said with a smile, but still keeping his eyes up ahead.

“You know I love you dearly—”

“I know that,” Scott said, his smile growing wider and turning around to beam at his boyfriend.

“But whatever passed through the school only left that scent on the metal it scorched…” Isaac gave him a cheeky grin as he blushed slightly, as he did whenever Scott smiled at him. “We’re not going to find metal out in a forest.”

“You’ll be surprised—”

But Scott could not finish whatever he was about to say, because he stepped on something that _cracked_. He had stepped on something brittle that had broken, and before he could check what it was, time slowed down.

In slow motion, Scott saw Isaac’s grin turn.

“Scott,” Isaac said as he sluggishly reached out for him. “NOOOO…”

But Scott was falling backwards, and everything he saw acquired a blue tint. He continued falling, slowly, until the trees around him were all horizontal. Then Isaac froze, there was a burst of blue light, and Scott kept falling until he was standing up, but he was no longer in the preserve.

He was standing in the middle of a courtyard. The floor was beaten, yellow earth, there were a few thickets of weeds. To his left there was a stone wellhead with a broken bucket linked to a chain. The courtyard was of a weird polygonal shape, with seven or eight sides, and enclosed completely by a building like he had never seen. The ground floor of this construction was of orange bricks; some of the walls had glazed lattice windows with geraniums in boxes sitting on the sills. There were odd wooden benches and a handful of abandoned tools (scythes, shovels, forks) against the walls. On top of this brick ground floor there was another level, but this was built in wood, with long, dark planks also interrupted by the occasional window. The pitched roof that crowned this polygonal construction was tiled with black slate shingles.

“Hello?” Scott asked, but nobody answered.

He looked down, and at least he was wearing the same clothes that he had in the preserve: white-and-navy baseball tee, black jeans, and walking boots.

The air was hot and heavy. Scott could see the sun shining high above, but he could hear the roar of thunder in the distance. He could feel the static charge building up in the ambience.

“Anyone here?” he asked again. “Isaac…?” He said in a lower voice, worry clutching his chest.

He had stepped on something and crossed into _somewhere_. As part of his research into banshees, Stiles had come across some very disturbing and contradictory lore about the fae, who apparently lived in a different world that existed within ours. Derek could not confirm nor deny anything, and the bestiary contained hardly anything of use. Scott did not know if this had anything to do with fairies, but a voice inside him had spoken two words: _Annwn_ , _Otherworld_.

Scott shook his head and slowly walked towards the arched gateway, which seemed to be the only way out of that building, since none of the walls appeared to have any doors. The wooden gate was dry and dusty, and the rusted hinges had tainted the planks orange. Scott tried to lift the heavy latch that kept the gate shut, but it soon became evident that he lacked his werewolf strength. Scott had to really focus to keep his panic at bay, because he did not want to find out if his asthma was back.

Scott knelt under the latch and, gathering all his strength, heaved up until the beam lifted. He quickly kicked one door open and pushed himself aside, letting the beam fall heavily on the ground.

The noise of the beam hitting the ground echoed and rolled until it merged with the distant thunder.

A path of beaten earth led out of the gate. From it, Scott could see that the polygonal building looked almost like a castle, standing on top of a steep hill covered in green grass. In the distance there was a high mountain range, its peaks covered in snow. Behind them Scott could see black storm clouds clustering. In front of him, however, there was a large and inviting forest.

Scott decided to walk into the woods, feeling that something inside it was calling for him.

The broad green leaves partly blocked the sun, but enough of the warm, yellow sunlight filtered down to the ground to illuminate the soft grass and the small bushes. The air felt stagnant and heavy.

A wolf howled in the distance, and soon three others answered the call. Without knowing exactly how or why, Scott recognised those howls. Even if their werewolf howling sounded more like a roar (and he was very clearly hearing the long, vocal sound of a wolf), he could tell that those calls belonged to his pack. One was Isaac’s, one was Liam’s, and one was Derek’s; but the first one had been _his_.

Not really understanding what was happening, Scott decided to continue walking into the forest. The green leaves and the yellow light soon changed to grey, naked branches, scarred bark, and a chilly wind that came from the clouds above. It almost felt as if he had returned to the preserve on the very night he was bitten. When he realised that, Scott turned around, but the green, warm forest was no longer behind him, and even through the naked trees he could not see the weird building on top of the hill.

Worst of all: the wolf howls now echoed _behind_ him, as if, somehow, he had walked past them. The only thing he could hear now was the rustling of the dead leaves on the floor, pushed by the unforgiving wind that chilled him to his bones.

 _Scott_ , he heard a voice calling from behind a tree.

“Derek?”

 _Scott_ , Derek’s voice called from behind a different tree.

“Derek, where are you?”

 _Scott_ , the voice sounded alarmed, and it sounded closer.

“Derek! Where am I?”

Then the wind stopped, and his beta’s voice echoed just behind him.

 _Run_.

Scott did not think about it twice. He legged it.

The rustling of the dead leaves behind him got louder, and this time it was also accompanied by the heavy, rhythmic thump of clawed paws on the ground. Scott gritted his teeth and sprinted faster.

As he fled from whatever was behind him, Scott could hear the wolves howling again, but the howls did no longer feel like a call and a reply – the howls felt coordinated, no longer looking for each other, but actively moving together.

Scott pressed on as the thumping behind him accelerated, but at one point the fear that was oppressing his chest and an unexpected burst of curiosity made him turn around to _see_ what he was running from – and he immediately regretted it.

A large creature, big as a bus, was chasing him. The first thing Scott saw was its head, which was nothing but a bare skull with two points of glowing purple in its eye sockets. The creature’s cranium was elongated and diamond-shaped. If the veterinarian atlas he had perused in Deaton’s clinic was any indication, the skull was that of a horse, although horses normally did not have a branched horn protruding from their heads. The next thing Scott noticed was that the creature was all bones, and no flesh. More intriguing was the fact it was all long bones and spine; no ribcage, no tail. Just a serpentine spine and four bone limbs attached to the skull.

 _Stop_.

The word echoed in Scott’s mind. It sounded hollow, cold, and ancient. It was full of command and authority, and Scott unconsciously obeyed.

The alpha stopped running and only very slowly turned around. He could not hear the wolves anymore – he could not hear his pack. He could only hear the pulse in his ears and the thumping heart in his chest. A cold sweat run down his back, and Scott really wished he could think about his mother or his grandparents, or about Isaac or Allison, but at that moment he could only think of Peter’s red-glowing eyes on the night he was bitten.

When Scott finally turned around he noticed that the bone creature had stopped too. It was sitting on its legs and propped up on his arms, with his skull looming above Scott’s head. The pose reminded Scott of a sitting bear.

 _Alpha_ , the same voice echoed in his mind, sending a shiver down his spine.

“Who are you?” Scott managed to ask.

 _I am the Spirit of the Forest_.

“Are you the nemeton?” Scott arched an eyebrow, his fear suddenly gone. Something told him that he was facing a force of the supernatural, one that was treating him with respect.

 _I am a guardian of this side, just like you are a guardian on your side. My actions reflect in your world as much as yours do in mine. Our powers bridge across the divide, and we both have avatars of our own in each world_.

“What world is this?” was the only question Scott managed to ask. There was too much information in those few sentences for him to process, and he was not sure if he wanted to understand what exactly was going on.

 _All worlds are one. They exist together, even if they are experienced separately_.

“What do you want from me?” Scott asked.

 _I do not want anything. We already work as one. But now you know me, and now I know who you are_.

Just like that and without any warning, the giant skeleton creature began to fade away, its bones crumbling into grit and dust that was blown away by the breeze.

“Wait! Wait! But—”

 _Your deeds echo in both our worlds…_ the voice echoed in Scott’s mind one last time as the bones disappeared in the wind.

The wolf howls called again, more desperate this time, almost full of fear. While Scott running away from the Spirit of the forest had been an understandable reaction to external stimuli, the fear and dread that filled his soul was completely different this time. It was unexplainable, completely irrational. He could not sense any danger, but he _knew_ deep inside him that there was a void approaching, something larger and incomprehensible. Something that came from beyond whatever world he had crossed into. Something that Scott did not want to encounter; something that Scott did not want to know about him.

He ran through the forest, not knowing where to go. Scott just ran and ran until his lungs hurt. He tripped on a root but when he landed he fell on soft, green grass under a broad-leaf canopy, bathed by warm yellow light. But the wind was changing, and it was turning colder. The wolf howls became more desperate now, but Scott at least could pin-point where they were coming from, so he kept on running.

It had been a long time since Scott had been this frightened; even when facing kanimas, hunters, alpha packs, or berserkers he had felt that he had some control, that he had options, that he had friends, family, pack. But, right now, Scott felt the kind of existential horror that can only exist in nightmares; fear of nothingness, fear of the not-being in the void. Fear of the distant chaotic and maddening piping that had no right to exist. Fear of being absolutely on his own.

Tears ran down Scott’s cheeks as he gritted his teeth and forced himself to run across the forest. He needed to get out: get to his mother, get to Isaac.

Scott forced himself to keep on going when he reached the edge of the forest. The castle on the hill was now visible in the distance, but Scott tripped over and fell over, bruising his knees, and scratching his cheeks into the bushes. Groaning in pain, he pushed himself up: he needed to get out of there. His ankle hurt like fuck, and the blood of his cuts mixed with the tears that kept running down his face. But he could not stay there.

By the time he reached the hill the sun was beginning to set behind the storm clouds. Scott could still see a small wedge of clear sky turning orange, red and pink, and then purple, blue and black, but the storm clouds glowed in an unnatural green, and the lightning bolts that jumped from cloud to cloud illuminated all the dome of heaven.

The wind began to blow stronger, and when Scott reached the crest of the hill a gust yanked the gate out of its jambs, sending the ancient wood flying into the storm. Shingles fell from the roof, and the biggest bolt of lightning erupted in the sky. Scott was not sure of what he saw next, but for an instant he thought he saw a massive figure beyond the clouds, its contour outlined by the glare of the flash.

The desperate howling of his pack snapped Scott from his shock, and the alpha finally entered the polygonal building. In the middle of the courtyard, in the very same spot that he had appeared earlier, there was a single bone on the floor. It looked old, pale, and brittle. A memory flashed across his eyes of him _seeing_ a very similar bone on the ground in the preserve. Without thinking about how long ago that had been, Scott stomped on the bone.

Scott felt his foot break through the bone, break through the ground, and break through reality. Suddenly, Scott was falling into the darkness below.

Scott closed his eyes.

Scott landed on the floor with a thud, but he dared not open his eyes. Within a second something grabbed him and pulled him in for a hug.

“Scott!”

It was Isaac. Scott opened his eyes and saw his boyfriend kneeling beside him.

“Scott! What happened? You’re crying and you’re bleeding?” Isaac was panicking, but it only got worse when he held his hand. “You’re in _pain_!”

Scott did not let him ask anything else. He just pulled him in and let his boyfriend cuddle him in his arms.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Isaac said, trying to calm both of them down. “You’re safe. You’re with me.”

“What happened?” Scott asked once he stopped hyperventilating.

“You- you tripped. And you fell backwards, and there was a flash,” Isaac tried to explain, but it was clear that he was having a difficult time believing what he had seen. “There was a flash and you disappeared for a second, and now you’re back? Why are you hurt? Where did you go?”

“I…” Scott tried to remember, but there were too many thoughts and memories to process. There was also the terror that still rattled deep inside him and the half-memory of what he had felt and seen. “I’m not sure.”

“Why are you hurt?” Insisted as he took his boyfriend’s pain, slowly triggering Scott’s healing.

“I found a creature,” the alpha explained. “I met the Spirit of the Forest.”

“Scott please don’t scare even more, because I’m already freaking out,” Isaac gave him a nervous smile, trying to stay strong even if seeing his boyfriend disappear in mid-air had sent him into panic. “What does that spirit want?”

“Nothing,” Scott replied. “Just to meet.”

Isaac looked at Scott with incredulity.

“Why did it want to meet you? And why are you hurt? You still haven’t told me!”

Scott did not have an answer. He had seen the spirit, it had told him about how their deeds had repercussions beyond Beacon Hills and that, somehow, they worked along, but Scott still needed to process all of what had happened.

“Can we go home?” he said after a quiet pause.

“Yes, of course. We’ll go home right now. I’ll ring Lydia.”

“It all feels like a dream now,” Scott explained as Isaac gently helped him up, putting a strong arm around his back.

“You sure it was not a nightmare?” his boyfriend asked as he texted.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” the alpha said. “I’m back with you.”

Isaac planted a warm kiss on Scott’s head, squeezing him gently with his arm.

As they walked towards the motorbike, Scott heard Isaac say a lot of things, about how he was not going to let him out of his sight ever again, or that he would rip the throat of any spirit that dared take him away into the Unknown Dimension. But Scott did not pay much attention, because he was slowly coming to terms with what the Spirit of the Forest had told him. That they worked together, that they were guardians of their _sides_. That on both sides of the divide Scott had an ally.

But then the wind changed, colder, drier, smelling of storm and ozone. And Scott shivered as his mind shut down the memories of the true powers that existed beyond the threshold of Annwn.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know this doesn't make much sense, but this is heavily inspired in a nightmare that woke me up a few weeks ago and has been nagging me ever since. Hopefully putting it into writing will help?


End file.
